Notre Dame’s rector says exactly the right thing in the wake of Dominique Venner, a far-right activist protesting France’s legalization of same-sex marriage, having stuck a gun down his throat and fired in front of schoolchildren visiting the cathedral. It takes a special sort of madman to make a bloody spectacle of himself in a church full of children.
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA LOST MONEY
SELLING BEER TO COLLEGE KIDS
**********************
UD thanks Dave.
That’s all test centers in the entire Republic of Korea. Pretty amazing country – cheaters, plagiarists, as far as the eye can see. UD has covered endemic plagiarism there; now it looks as though charging people lots of money for getting SAT questions in advance is also pretty close to endemic. Details, if you can stomach them, here.
Speaking of cheaters, the outfit that sued your blogger and hundreds of others lo these many years ago (refresh your memory here – scroll down) is of course no longer an outfit, having been eviscerated by this country’s legal system. In case you thought there was no more pain our courts could inflict on these trolls, get a load of this happy news.
Keep it coming.
In a really spectacular instance of state corruption, a Salt Lake City justice court judge – a woman who used to chair the board of the Utah Law Related Education Project — a woman who “handles repeat DUI offenders” — has been arrested as part of a large tri-state drug distribution network.
The case of Virginia Bauskett Ward is truly remarkable, truly a piece of remarkable evidence — from one of our most self-righteous states — that the profoundly destructive opioid trade is beginning to embed itself in the country’s institutions.
… in this post. I said that he would crawl into a hole and kill himself.
He apparently did just that. Or he tried to.
Authorities believe Tsarnaev may have tried to shoot himself before he was taken into custody Friday night because of the trajectory and location of the bullet wound in his neck, a source familiar with the investigation said Sunday.
The shot was fired at close range, the source said, suggesting the wound was self-inflicted.
I thought he’d do it because I remembered George Zinkhan, a University of Georgia professor who killed three people (including his wife) and then went missing. He was found in a shallow grave with a bullet he’d put in his head.
… the second bomber, UD‘s sister-in-law watches the news and stays inside.
********************
A WBUR interview with Joanna last year, about a show she curated at the Museum of Fine Arts school.
… who lives right in the midst of it in Watertown.
While Mr UD was talking to her ten minutes ago, she noted a swat team entering a house just across the street from hers.
She says she is basically watching television and talking to the people who are calling her.
She has “enough rice and sugar for about a month. Dinner and dessert!”
********************
She just called again. Swat team in her backyard. She heard someone say Hands up.
I’m not making this up.
*********************
Another call. All clear.
*********************
But she is definitely very rattled.
**********************
UD will venture a prediction: If this person has any shred of a rational mind left, he has crawled into a hole somewhere and killed himself. Police will find a body.
… the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. The university has closed down and asked students and anyone else on campus to shelter in place.
A campus policeman responding to a disturbance call at MIT has been shot and killed outside one of its buildings.
People are being advised to stay indoors; the shooter is at large.
It’s unlikely to be connected to the marathon bombings, but it’s not impossible.
************************
Situation escalating, with what appears to be a police chase, many gunshots, and even explosions reported, in Watertown, where UD‘s sister-in-law lives.
*************************
AP reports “an arrest is imminent” in the marathon bombings.
**************************
Mr UD just spoke to his sister, who lives in the center of the activity. She had not long ago been awakened by a phone call from the police – they told her to stay inside. Just after that, she heard two explosions.
**************************
Confirmed: The Watertown suspects are the marathon bombers. One of the bombers has been killed. The other remains at large.
**************************
Police are now going door to door in Watertown.
**************************
Events as of 8:00 AM Friday:
[T]he suspects [Chechen brothers with military experience, both of whom had been in the States for about a year] approached a police officer from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and shot him in the head.
The two then stole the officer’s cruiser, robbed a nearby 7-Eleven, carjacked a Mercedes SUV and briefly kidnapped the driver, the sources said. The suspects threw explosives out the window during the chase that followed, they said. A Boston transit police officer was shot and wounded, authorities said.
The dead suspect — the man in the black hat from the FBI photos — had an improvised explosive device strapped to his chest, law enforcement officials said.
Kitzenberg said that the firefight ended when one of the shooters ran toward the Watertown officers and ultimately fell to the ground. Kitzenberg said he could not tell whether the man was tackled or had been shot.
The other drove the SUV through a line of police offcers at the end of the street, he said. A bullet from the gunbattle lodged in the wall of Kitzenberg’s apartment, he said.
***************************
Remaining suspect just graduated from Rindge and Latin School, steps from our Cambridge house.
This is all unconfirmed, but there are reports of many injuries.
Two explosions confirmed; many injured. Three deaths reported.
Raw video on this page.
Ongoing coverage, harrowing videos.
At least two more explosive devices have been found in the same area; they are being dismantled.
Reports of yet more explosive devices around Boston.
This reports twelve dead and a suspect in custody.
****************
Death toll remains at three, among them an eight-year-old boy.
… that one responds to stories like this with relief. That he didn’t have a gun.
The suspect is a 21-year-old student.
He’s watching his dunce-nemesis, Alaska Rep. Don Young, twist slowly in the wind after having made his contribution to the Republican party’s effort to rebrand itself.
Of course Young has not apologized. Why should he apologize? Wetbacks is what they’re called.
UD definitely believes, along with Roman Hruska, that mediocrity has a right to representation in our government. She’s less sure about people like Don Young.
The most macabre headline is this one, in USA Today:
EXPLOSIVE DEVICES, CORPSE, FOUND ON UCF CAMPUS
A dorm was evacuated, and the campus closed, after – in response to a 911 call – police found a dead person in a dorm room and, near him, an assault weapon and improvised explosive devices.
This is a big story because it’s part of an emerging new normal for certain disturbed Americans. UD guesses that this suicide had in mind going out with a bang, as in Aurora and Sandy Hook. For whatever reason, though, he decided to skip the part where he murders forty people, and instead went straight to killing himself.